


Two Volumes

by paper_ribbons



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Eliot and Alice friendship development, and also Eliot angst as he tries to heal with the help of various non-alcoholic beverages, and finally what the deal is with his two books in the Library, and granting the characters hope instead, but I'm throwing every sad thing canon implies in the garbage, but one with infinite positive possibilities, no sad ending here, post 4x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 09:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19129714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paper_ribbons/pseuds/paper_ribbons
Summary: He spends a lot of time in the Library these days, thinking, and keeping Alice company.  None of those are pastimes he would have pegged for himself even 8 months ago, but on the low end, they’re not so bad, and on the high end, he’s existentially grateful for them.  In other words, his life’s up to its usual fuckery.Eliot’s slumped on the floor of her current aisle - the one that so happens to contain Their Books.  “So, you’ve never looked at yours?” he muses, toeing at the lives of other people occupying the bottom shelf as he stares up at himself and his friends.  Little soldiers in a row.  He guesses that’s exactly what they’ve been since meeting, and he thinks the cost was too high."Not really,” she says, rearranging the stack he’s leaning against."But I have two."----OR: Eliot figures out the reason for his two volumes, and some people are maybe saved in the process.





	Two Volumes

**Author's Note:**

> Long time fanfic listener, first time caller. And I'm starting things off with a fic that's literally the last thing I ever thought I would write? Let's go to the startling evidence! 1) It acknowledges the season 4 finale. 2) It acknowledges it as canon. 3) It heavily involves Alice Quinn - who I like just fine, but she wouldn't have been who I'd pick to heal my heart. Except that I did. I guess processing upset is funny that way.
> 
> But there's no real sadness here. Just characters coming into a new friendship, discovering things that cause them to freak out, and getting rewarded for their efforts in the end. That end, I should point out, is intentionally abrupt yet hopeful, and I hope not dissatisfying. We can discuss in the notes at the end. As anyone here knows, comments are so so welcome, and thanks for reading.

He spends a lot of time in the Library these days, thinking, and keeping Alice company.  None of those are pastimes he would have pegged for himself even 8 months ago, but on the low end, they’re not so bad, and on the high end, he’s existentially grateful for them.  In other words, his life’s up to its usual fuckery. 

 

How gallingly typical, then, that he’d finally gotten around to knowing someone who’d been in his life for years, all because another someone they’d both much preferred had irreparably vanished.  Using words like ‘vanished’, he’s found, is helpful because they stab a little more gently than other words. He’s also found that ‘much preferred’ isn’t quite as accurate as it once was, and that’s been a turn for the better.  Things change. They evolve. He drinks flavored seltzer now instead of drums of alcohol, which isn’t at all the same, but Margo’d kept pressing them into his palms every time he’d gotten that faraway-nothing in his eye, as if answers sat at the bottom of bottles.  He has every right to go dark and stormy, but she doesn’t want him to. Also, Q wouldn’t have wanted him to. But that doesn’t matter, and Quentin doesn’t get a say anymore. Except… that’s not accurate, either. 

 

So, some things stay the same.  

 

And while Eliot will never claim anything good came from what he’s lost (nothing did and nothing could, because he himself is still lost with it), a welcome surprise truly was learning who Alice Quinn really is.  Realizing he genuinely kind of likes her is another one.

 

Sometimes, Eliot thinks (when he’s being charitable with himself) that being around someone he’s come to respect as much as Alice maybe makes him respect himself a little more.  

 

Just sometimes.

 

Charity’s often so much snake oil.

 

His time at the Library, however.  That’s somewhat harder to pin down.  Somewhere along the line, his presence shifted from “anomalous” to “expected”.  He remembers showing up one day, seeking research opportunities on the Dark King, and Alice being eager to assist.  He remembers growing increasingly tired as the months drove on, his body managing recovery at a pace his soul couldn’t, and needing to step away more often.  He remembers wandering in there automatically, half-dumbfounded it was where he would turn, but found Alice standing in front of him, heart wrung into a similarly misshapen clump as his own.  And he’d finally started talking. 

 

Today, she shuffles about, hair curled up like she’s Peggy Carter, herringbone blazer and tulip skirt not impeding her confident casts a wit, and he thinks the look agrees with her.

 

For his part, he’s slumped on the floor of her current aisle - the one that so happens to contain Their Books.  Phase-Umpteenth of her New Library Initiative involves increased accessibility to personal histories, assigning alternating check-ins for them.  He’s been assigned no such task (given he doesn’t actually work there), but finds himself unable to keep from checking-in anyway. If even as an outside observer.  “So, you’ve never looked at yours?” he muses, toeing at the lives of other people occupying the bottom shelf as he stares up at himself and his friends. Little soldiers in a row.  He guesses that’s exactly what they’ve been since meeting, and he thinks the cost was too high.

 

“Not really,” she says, rearranging the stack he’s leaning against.  The work is beneath her - she’s the head of this goddamn place - but she likes keeping busy, and, even moreso, likes the idea that menial tasks keep her grounded and normal.  ‘Niffin humility,’ she’d once said, with an expression too resigned to be amused. And he’d wondered when (if) he’d ever have the strength to talk about his own not-him era so franky.   “When I was first, uh, ‘helping’ here, I snuck a quick peek. But I only got about five pages in before getting spooked,” she shrugs with a grimace.

 

“That bad?”

 

“I caught a hint of my time in Modesto, pretty innocuous in terms of content.  But honestly, having your real life played out in narration? It’s sort of fucking creepy.”

 

“Yeah, Margo told me about The Binder,” he murmurs, and Alice cocks her head like it’s her point precisely.  However, he continues staring, his gaze boring into the spines of his twin volumes. “But I have two.”

 

“You have two,” she agrees, then lets out a small, “Um?” and he glances up to see her gesturing at one of the upper shelves.  With a small smile, he stands and helps her place a couple books at the top of the stack, a good foot past her reach, and she smiles back appreciatively.

 

The first time they’d done this and she’d requested his help, he’d done so as if in slow motion, his body, his spirit, so weighed down it was a quest in itself just to get off the floor.  He’d grudgingly taken the tome from her and set it where’d she pointed, before saying, “Far be it from me to lean into the obvious, but you’re actually a great proficient at this thing called magic.”

 

“I know,” she’d given a curt nod.  “And it’s what I use for this when you aren’t here, but you’re here.  So, I thought I’d put you to work.” He’d stared at her for a long moment, too long if the way she’d quickly looked back at the books was any indication.  They still hadn’t known each other well enough, then, to pass words back and forth in looks, and he figured he still made her nervous. But as he watched her, felt the sensation of leather binding linger on his fingertips, he thought he heard the first message.  She was trying to occupy him. She was trying to give him something to do, something of use. Something, if even for a moment, that looked like purpose, just the way she’d given it to herself. And he was overcome with the realization that Alice Quinn just might be the most generous person in the world.

 

“I’ll have another one in a few minutes,” she says, watching him slide back to the floor, working around him, and his gaze returns to his name.  

 

“Do you want to hear something especially annoying?” he says, tilting his head to the side, and Alice gives a small hum of interest.  “When we first came here, and I found out about all these books, I thought, ‘Well, what asshole wouldn’t just grab his immediately and read the whole thing?’  I’d been about eight sheets to the wind at the time, but a point’s a point,” he shrugs, squinting at his binding. “We were then, of course,  _ banned _ , so that kind of put a wrench in things.  Then my kingdom was invaded by fairies and ten neighboring factions, and wedding plans and fratricide.  As it goes. And I never got around to this. But now I’m sitting right here, nothing to stop me... and  _ I’m _ the asshole who can’t bring himself to just read the whole thing.”  Running a thumb over his lip, he appraises the aisle, finger-lengths away from achieving omniscience and finding it far too daunting to take it.  

 

“I don’t think that makes you an asshole,” she says in that sweet way that trips over other people’s curse words even though he’s heard her talk like a sailor on her own.  “It’s really difficult to confront the future head on. I’d think knowing all that would kind of be its own burden.”

 

“Maybe,” he agrees, thumb tapping away.  “Still, two volumes.”

 

He continues mulling over it - a solid, indulgent mull - until Alice needs his help again.   _ Terry Sussman _ , three shelves up above their books, and he’s once more at a loss as to the nuances of this filing system.  What do the poor fools surrounding Terry’s book have working against them? Or are they all just something normal to each other, like friends who meet up for cheesecake on the lanai?  Maybe they’re the Golden Girls. Maybe Terry’s the Sophia of his group.

 

Having set Terry with his companions, Eliot lingers at eye level with the pair of Him, isolated in their duality.  They both have the same font along the spines, the same level of wear and patina, like all two doses of him were churned out simultaneously.  Another mysterious inner-working of the Library, but possibly not the most important. While inspecting, he notices a smudge of ink near the top of Volume 2, obscuring some of the number he’s come to understand helps Alice with sorting, and a strange sense of ownership overtakes him, the same as if he’d found tapenade smeared on a favorite tie.  Licking his thumb, he gingerly reaches for his second book, hooking his fingers over the spine ever so lightly for balance, and-

 

“Carmen Lopez is gonna be-,” Alice suddenly says, and Eliot jolts, hand slapping against the top of his book and knocking it, pages flung open, to the ground. 

 

“Jesus, shit!” he recoils from it, turning his body away and shielding his eyes as if he’d been about to stare at a solar eclipse.  “Shit!”

 

“Eliot!” Alice whips around, alarmed.  “Are you okay? What hap-,” and she stops mid-sentence, eyes tracking his index finger to the splayed text, cover-side up on the floor.  She swallows. “Oh, oh god-”

 

Hands still hovering at his head like he’s a Central Park carriage horse, he reemphasizes, succinctly, “ _ SHIT! _ ”

 

“Do you want me to get it?” she asks, hands already extending.  But-

 

“No, no it’s mine.  It should be me,” he winces, taking a side-step toward it.  “I’m just gonna… _ not _ make direct eye contact, or-”

 

“Like with gorillas?”

 

He frowns.  “I think it’s a de facto predator strategy,  _ Alice _ .  Just let me…”

 

He bends at the knees, which is advice he understands is meant for lifting physically heavy objects, not emotionally heavy ones, but he does it anyway, because  _ fuck _ .  Reaching the book, he pinches it between his fingers, steering it away from his body, and forces his eyes to a blur just in case they traitorously glance at a page. 

 

Which they do.

 

Because he’s an idiot.

 

But he freezes.

 

Then grasps the book open in hand, vision searing into the paper.

 

“Eliot?” Alice asks, voice all agitation and concern now.  “Eliot, are you… are you sure you ought to be reading that page…?”

 

His eyes shoot up to hers, wild and sharp, and as he turns the book in her direction, he blurts out, “Alice, what the grim fuck is  _ this _ ?”

 

Reticent, she peels her own sights from his to his pages, and a garbled noise catches in her throat.

 

It’s blank.

 

“It’s  _ blank _ .”

 

“The blankest,” his voice is clipped.  “A blank space of Taylor-Swift-number-one-single proportions, so what the  _ fuck _ is going on?”

 

“I don’t… know.”

 

He swallows, features becoming wan.  “Is it another omen? Do the others all have this, too, like the last time?”

 

“No!” she says, shaking her head.  “Granted, I haven’t been reading them myself, but we have people who check for that kind of thing.  That’s like their  _ only _ job.”

 

“Well, it seems quality control is slipping, because  _ this _ ,” he points at Volume 2, “is  _ exactly _ that kind of thing.”

 

She sighs.  “In all honesty, I don’t think anyone has looked in yours for awhile.  There’s a rotation with some of the older books,” he squints at the age implication, but she barrels on, “ _ maintenance _ .  I don’t think any of our books were set to be checked again for a bit.”

 

“So, what if they’re all like this?”

 

They freeze.

 

Her eyelids flicker.  “I… I mean-”

 

“Grab Margo’s,” he says, panic lining the words, and she quickly scoops up  _ Margo Hanson _ , having to thumb through it herself, because Eliot physically can’t release the book clutched in his hands.  

 

“I,” she says, allowing the pages to simply zip by, more or less seeking confirmation of text on the page versus the content of any of it.  Toward the back, she finally lets herself glimpse a line and cringes. “I didn’t need to know she could bend that way.”

 

“Bambi,” he says approvingly, and Alice looks up at him, plaintive. “So, she’s fine.”

 

“Yeah, it seems that way,” Alice says, gingerly returning the text.     
  


“Grab another, then,” he requests, voice still tight.  “Todd.”

 

“Todd?” she repeats bemused, and he shrugs.  Turning back to the shelf, she glances around, scouting for a ‘T’.  Her finger slides along the metal, mouth sounding out names. “Where-”

 

“It’s, uh,” he motions at the tome one shelf down labeled  _ (Eliot) Todd Mercato _ .  Alice’s eyes widen before she’s jabbing at the parenthetical and giving Eliot a pointed look.  He nods in vaguely abashed acknowledgement, and she sighs in that way that lets him know that even though they’re friends now, she still thinks he’s full of shit sometimes.  Fair.

 

Sweeping  _ Todd _ into her hands, she gives the same treatment she gave  _ Margo _ , checking for writing’s existence more than content, lingering a little as she reaches the end.  “Wow, he does very well for himself,” she comments, skimming a back chapter, and Eliot waves it off with a dismissive huff, and she returns the book to its spot.  They pause, then, taking in the line of themselves and their friends. Eliot’s head feels enviced. 

 

“So, it’s only… maybe…?” he says looking down at  _ Eliot Waugh, Volume 2 _ , the book seemingly gaining weight by the second, and Alice clears her throat.

 

“It’s starting to look that way,” she frowns, and her irritation is split equitably between sympathy for him specifically and not having an answer to a question in general.  She bites her lip. “I don’t have any idea about the reason behind it, and I-”

 

“You read Quentin’s book,” he says suddenly and she fidgets in her surprise.  It’s not that they don’t talk about him - in fact at the beginning, they talked about him more than anything else - but it’s that they don’t talk about him like  _ this _ .  His name doesn’t just pop into sentences, making brief cameos.  Quentin’s name comes with a glass of wine (hers) and a cup of oolong (nothing like wine - his), and a warm couch after a long day, and a preface that really sets the tone for the reminiscence to come.  Eliot brings it up now like he’s ordering a cheeseburger.

 

“I-”

 

“Before, when I was still, uh…,” he starts, but that’s a harder one for them to talk about,  _ him _ to talk about, and the concern for his well-being that’s always present in Alice’s eyes grows a little keener.  “When I wasn’t quite  _ myself  _ a little while back, and you were trying to help.  You said you’d read Quentin’s book. How much of it?”

 

“I don’t know,” she says, breath a sigh, and placing her hands at her hips for focus.  “I was trying to throw off the Library from all of us, so I was just ripping out endings, and happened to catch what his was.  That dog...”

 

“So, you didn’t,” Eliot swallows, processing.  His eyes flick to their shelf. “You didn’t read the whole thing?”

 

“No...,” she replies, and watches as one of Eliot’s hands flies out to grab his first volume.

 

“Eliot, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she says, reaching though not touching.  “You don’t know what you’re gonna find. You don’t even know where the second one picks up.”

 

“I have an idea,” he mutters, flipping somewhere to the center of the first book.  His eyes initially just skip along, seeing nearly nothing, a bunch of words sold at a garage sale, meant for anyone, cheap and ordinary.  But then one, one he was  _ hoping _ for, jumps out as if printed in light.

 

_ Teddy. _

 

Eliot exhales in a way that nearly takes his body to the floor with it, and Alice’s hands are on him now, steadying him, fucking stronger than he ever would have guessed.  

 

“Eliot?”

 

“Our  _ son _ ,” he chokes out, and Alice startles, now glancing between him and the pages.  She isn’t confused. They’ve had too many talks, talks centered specifically on what Q meant to each of them, for Fillory not to have come up.  The mosaic and Arielle and Teddy ( _ Teddy _ ) and other select memories fit to share, that all were and weren’t.  No, were.  _ Are _ .  Everything to him.  Alice knows about them.  But her expression is echoing the one he can feel on his own face, and she’s pasteing herself to his side to read, unwilling to take the book away from him.

 

“This… this is your life in Fillory.  With Quentin,” she whispers. “Oh my god, Eliot, you’re in your mid-fifties here.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Volume 1,” her eyes darting to all the texts surrounding them, “it’s all from an extinct timeline?  I didn’t think… I didn’t believe those were recorded in the main books.”

 

And Eliot stills.  “They’re… recorded elsewhere?”

 

“I mean, it’s the Library.  You wanna see the pamphlets on our other 39 timelines?”

 

“I mean,  _ obviously _ ,” and Alice’s lips tick up despite herself.  “But pamphlets?” 

 

“More like novellas,” she self-corrects, adjusting her glasses as she skims the page.  “We didn’t make it very long in most of those realities, so there wasn’t much to record.”

 

“But Quentin had a full book.  A normal, full volume. We’ve seen it.  And in this timeline, he didn’t-,” Eliot gulps, barely wanting to pass the words but needing to nonetheless, “he didn’t  _ make _ it much longer than any of the alternate ones.  This life wasn’t a pamphlet.”

 

“No,” she agrees thoughtfully.  “So…”

 

“So…?” Eliot encourages, watching her gears turn.  Her gaze sharpens.

 

“So, it stands to reason that his book chronicles an entire life -  _ your _ entire life - in past-Fillory.”  Eliot nods, silently, unable to actually say the words himself, positive he’d jinx them out of plausibility.  “How is any of this possible?” she asks running her hand over his first book. “Why is it recorded here and not-”

 

“How did Q and I remember any of it in the first place?   _ All _ of it?” he interjects, not unkindly, but unable to rein in his whirring mind.  Proof of concept. They’d said to each other, and fuck they’d meant it.  _ Really _ meant it, in a way that’d kept Eliot fighting for months and caused Quentin to jump feet first at a second chance.  But despite how much Eliot knew,  _ knew _ it was theirs and real, to see a text corroborating it is something else entirely.  Because now it’s all written out, laying in his hands, and he suddenly wants to ingest every word.  

 

Wants to relive in lucid detail the moment Quentin’s mouth first pushed up against his on a night meant to celebrate one anniversary, and ultimately marking it as a different one.  Wants to get lost in the clutch of Quentin’s hand in a market, Q extolling the virtues of a truly hideous curtain for Teddy’s window and Eliot kissing his forehead in response.  Wants to trace over the shape of “I love you” every time Quentin said it, either with the explicit words or the roll of his hips or the smallest, thoughtful gesture. He wants, he  _ wants _ .  He wants  _ Quentin _ .  

 

“Eliot,” Alice begins, tentatively, and Eliot raises glassy eyes.  “Where do the blank pages start?”

 

They both look at Volume 2, tucked under his arm, as if waiting for it to take the initiative so they don’t have to.  

 

Delicately handing her his first book, Eliot slips Volume 2 out into his hands and takes a staying breath.  “I’m not sure what’s in this one,” he says as if that weren’t evident, and Alice’s lips form a line.

 

“No offense to the great and powerful Library,” she says, “but it doesn’t look like the book does either.”  

 

Eliot smirks, running his hand over the cover.  He doesn’t want to be that asshole rifling through his book anymore, catching glimpses of all his pending secrets (he’s done an excellent job at keeping things from himself for years, thanks).  But he can’t go on knowing about the emptiness. He thinks it might empty out what’s left of him, leaving just a heart half-drowned in pamplemousse La Croix, beating out  _ QuentinQuentinQuentin _ against the bubbles.  He takes a deep breath, and flips the book open to its center.

 

…

 

Nothing.

 

Cutting a glance at Alice out of the corner of his eye, he gathers a clump of pages between fingers, before whipping them earlier in the text.

 

Nothing.

 

“I mean,” he mumbles, then gathers more pages and flips earlier still.

 

_ Nothing _ .

 

“There’s not a whole lot of book left to check, here,” the exasperation taking over, and Alice concurs.  

 

“Um, well, maybe if we just… try,” she delicately reaches across him for the first cluster of pages.  “I’ll look so you don’t-,” she offers off Eliot’s blanch and he gives her a small nod. The muffled sound of pages flipping breaks up the silence, and he’s grateful to hear anything besides the ringing building in his ears.  Then Alice inhales, quick and spiked, and hits him like an exclamation mark.

 

“What, what is it?” Eliot asks, unable to not.  “I  _ die _ ,” he posits immediately.  “No,  _ no _ , then the book would stop.”  His mind is reeling. “Todd and I switch bodies!  I become Todd, and succumb to a life so dull and average there’s no point in documenting it.”

 

“No, you don’t  _ become _ Todd,  _ Jesus _ ,” she grumbles, then gives his arm a small tug.  Eliot glances over at her, then off her forceful look at the pages, redirects his sights down there.

 

“This is us… a few weeks ago?” he reads.  She was right, it was uncomfortable seeing your life narrated.  “This is what’s at the beginning of this book?”

 

“Sort of,” she says.  “The first chapter or so is covering the last few months.  A lot about your recovery, you and Margo discussing the Dark King, you and me in these stacks.”

 

“So, my life... post-possession,” he offers, stilted, but she stares at him implicatively, leading him to try again.  When he does, what he finds halts him. “My life… after Quentin....”

 

It falls from his lips like lead, and as she nods, one of those painful losses of air consumes him again.  Superb. “So, my first volume  _ ends _ where Quentin’s does,” he states rather than asks, anger leaching into his voice.  He can’t help it. How many more times can Q disappear (another gentler word) from him?  “Well...  _ what _ in the actual  _ fuck! _  This is  _ literally _ closing the book on that part of my life.  The part with him in it!” His hands are gripping the edges of the cover so hard, he expects to see his fingers poke through the canvas.  “And Volume 2, then, is what? A whole new me? A rebranding. Some fresh fucking publication for the modern audience.” He drops the book to the floor, stepping over and away from it, till he can lean against the stacks.  Like a fool, he’d set the cane aside a month ago, proudly (defiantly) declaring to Margo that he didn’t need it anymore. Could go on without its support. Now he wishes something else were holding him up besides the shelves that helped level him in the first place.  

 

However, on impulse, both as Head Librarian and as essential Alice Quinn, Alice ducks down and scoops up the discarded text, giving the cover a light brushing before moving closer to Eliot.

 

He peripherally watches as she nudges it open again, raising a warning eyebrow in her direction.  She’s undeterred. “We didn’t answer it,” she says plainly. “Where do the blank pages start?” Pressing his lips together, he grunts, but gives an affirming nod and she continues carefully pushing back pages.  He shouldn’t still be looking, shouldn’t care what it says anymore, but he’s watching anyway. After all, a self-destructive streak is a deep vein to mine. At last, he sees more white than charcoal gray taking over the spread, and when he does, he hears a sharp gasp.

 

Alice’s hand flies to his forearm, and grips, digs, clings like the floor might fall out from underneath them, and adrenaline courses through him.  Well, he hadn’t expected that reaction.

 

“Alice?”

 

“It’s us.  Here. Now. _  Right  _ now!” she chokes out, and he looks at her with such incredulity.  As if anything could be less remarkable than them here, now, right now.  But she’s shoving the book back into his hands, and he brings his eyes to the page.

 

And there in black and white is the last thing he ever thought he’d read:

 

_ “Eliot Waugh had a choice to make.  He could continue his brand new life.  Or he could save Quentin Coldwater.” _

 

 

_. _

**Author's Note:**

> And then it ends. haha. 
> 
> I've been wondering endlessly about the two-volume thing for ages now, and when season 4 ended, this explanation came to mind. I haven't been able to shake it.
> 
> This piece was built as a oneshot, so I don't have designs on continuing it, even though it obviously has that Chapter-1-cliffhanger vibe. My goal was just to get this pair to a point where they knew Quentin could be saved. More than that, that it was going to be Eliot who could save him. Ultimately, he could and Quentin would, and they would live for another 3x50 years together, defying all current mortality scales, happy and so, so completely in love. There's the real ending. But this is what I wanted to write.
> 
> However, I'm presently eyeball deep making an enormous Queliot fic that *does* have a standard beginning, middle, and end. So, you can look out for that later if you'd like, I guess, normal storytelling satisfaction. :) Thanks for reading.


End file.
